Nearly 200,000 people have signed a petition calling on the Government to ditch its plans to spy on bank accounts – a key tenet of the revised Data Protection & Digital Information Bill – amid claims people who are disabled, sick, or unemployed will be treated like criminals by default.
The petition, launched by Big Brother Watch, follows legal advice commissioned by the privacy group from barristers Dan Squires KC and Aidan Wills of Matrix Chamber, which states that if passed, the law would amount to “an unprecedented regime of intrusive generalised financial surveillance across the population, not restricted to serious crime at all”.
The petition states: “Everyone wants fraudulent uses of public money to be dealt with, and the government already has strong powers to check the bank statements of suspects.
“But this is a major expansion of government power that takes away our financial privacy like never before and does away with the presumption of innocence – the democratic principle that you shouldn’t be spied on unless police suspect you of wrongdoing. People who are disabled, sick, carers or looking for work should not be treated like criminals by default. None of us should.
“We must stop this!”
Information Commissioner John Edwards has also stepped into the row, amid concerns the proposals ride roughshod over consumers’ data protection rights. Back in January, he said: “While I agree that the measure is a legitimate aim for Government, given the level of fraud and overpayment cited, I have not yet seen sufficient evidence that the measure is proportionate.”
The proposal was one of the 240 last-minute amendments waved through on the third reading of the Bill in the Commons in November. Once the committee stage is complete, the Bill then goes to another report stage, which gives all members of the Lords a further opportunity to examine and make amendments.
After that, the Bill will have its third reading in the Lords, and then pass back to the Commons for any amendments made by the second House to be considered. Only when the exact wording has been agreed by the Commons and the Lords, is the Bill is ready for royal assent before becoming an Act of Parliament.
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